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Blog 511 – 12.31.2016
Can I Get An Amen?

That is a popular phrase on Social Media especially when someone is sharing their particular take on God. I would like to examine our need, craving as it were, to have our beliefs reinforced by others. I am not a big believer any longer in what I call ” group think.” Don’t get me wrong I do believe great things can be accomplished when people get on board with a great idea, sadly some pretty bad things can happen when it is a hateful, limiting, or dividing thought or belief that becomes popular. I think the Divine, by what ever name you choose to call Him, Her, or It wants us to always think the highest and best thoughts. And when your recognize one of those higher thoughts being expressed you might want to yell Eureka, Amen, or Hot damn. But be careful giving your “agreement” to great sounding words without really thinking for yourself what they might mean.

I have quoted Adolph Hitler’s great line many times, “The bigger the lie you tell, the more people will believe it.” Want to hear a few famous great lies that people swallow hook, line, and sinker? “It’s all the Jews fault.” You can insert Blacks, Whites, Catholics, Protestants, Islamics or any other name and it is still a big lie. No one person, or group could possible be at fault for all the perceived problems. But it is always easiest to blame all our troubles on the “others.” The problem with that all too easy out is that there really are no “others.” There is only “us” to blame or to praise. But then that is the root of the lie, we have to invent a “them” to have an “us against them” scenario. Another really big lie that people find so easy to buy is, “Shortage – there just isn’t enough to go around.” This is the excuse we give for hoarding, price gouging, and letting a large portion of the population of this planet go hungry, without water, and adequate clothing or housing. Not enough to go around indeed, when many people in this country, and I am not talking about the one percent with ninety percent of the wealth, rent a storage place to keep all their extra stuff that the don’t have room for in their house.

Can I get an Amen? Do you really need one? It seems to me to show a certain uncertainty about the position you are trying to take or the point you are trying to make. This can be disturbing to thinking individuals. It is sort of like celebrity endorsements of products or charities to me. These people are in many cases getting paid to push a product or charity. Do they use the product and even if they do are they paying the full price you would have to pay? As I said the whole Amen/Endorsement thing is disturbing to thinking people at least to people who think for themselves. I hear people make so many excuses for not thinking. Like giving to causes without thinking where the money really goes and saying God will bless the giver, really. Sounds pretty lame to me. Or paying twice the price for basically the same bar of soap just because a pretty starlet says she uses it. Come on, really. And it is a truism that the reason many people want to be famous is for the money the can make off endorsements.
Forest Gump got the money to start Bubba Gump Shrimping from a Ping Pong Paddle endorsement. That is of course fiction but Nike, and a host of other products pay big bucks for celebrity endorsements. How much are you willing to pay for an Amen? I didn’t think so.

Occasionally you will hear, “Word of mouth is the best advertising.” I believe that. If you should read something encouraging, thoughtful, or entertaining on my blog, hold your amens just tell a friend. That is the best compliment and only form of endorsement I seek.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White